Bio-imaging equipment
Zeiss LSM990 + Airyscan Inverted Confocal Microscope
Confocal microscope for the imaging of both fixed and live cells. The inverted set-up enables samples to be imaged in a variety of holders including slides, chamber slides, imaging dishes, or imaging plate formats.
Capabilities
- Fully automated inverted microscope
- Improved resolution in x, y, and z, higher sensitivity and increased speed
- Spectral imaging and linear unmixing capabilities to allow the differentiation of similar fluorescence dyes or fluorescence signals from auto-fluorescence
- Motorised stage for screening plates and slides, tile scanning and point visiting
- Temperature and CO2 regulation for live cell imaging with heated stage and fully integrated incubator box
- FRAP and FRET imaging
- Airyscan for resolution down to 90nm.
- AI Sample Finder for automated sample detection
- Widefield camera for easy sample finding
Microscope
Lasers
- 405
- 445
- 488
- 514
- 561
- 639
Objectives
- EC Plan-Neofluar 2.5x/0.085
- EC Plan-Neofluor 10x/0.30
- Plan-Apochromat 20x/0.8
- C-Apochromat 40x/1.2 W Korr FCS (available on request)
- Plan-Apochromat 40x/1.4 Oil DIC
- Plan-Apochromat 63x/1.4 Oil DIC
Airyscan
Airyscan is a form of super-resolution imaging, providing a 1.7x increase in resolution compared to conventional confocal microscopy. The confocal microscope utilises a pinhole to reject out of focus emission light, giving a sharper image but losing light making it dimmer and less sensitive. The Airyscan solves this trade-off between resolution and light efficiency by imaging on a 32-detector array, each of which acts like a small pinhole. All the light is collected and the signal from each individual detector is then reassigned to their correct position. This produces images with better signal to noise as well as increased resolution. Deconvolution algorithms can then be applied to further improve the resolution. As it is based on confocal technology the Airyscan works well with standard samples and dyes that can be used on the confocal microscope.
Location: Bioimaging Facility, Roger Stevens 5.52M